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[Plug] Fwd: non-bios boot loader: nuni
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Given the recent discussions at PLUG about lilo and the problems of
the PC BIOS, I found this announcement very interesting. It furthers
my position that lilo's design is unacceptable.
Also I have more information on GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader): The
debian package is at
dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/base/grub_0.5.93.1.deb ; the upstream
source is at ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/hurd/src/ (GRUB is required for
the hurd).
PS. I haven't tried either boot loader yet, but it is on my TODO
list. Please let us know if anyone has experience with either boot
loader.
-- Chris
From: Neil Koozer <nkoozer@rosenet.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: non-bios boot loader: nuni
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 20:43:34 GMT
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Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Mikko Rauhala)
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The nuni boot loader is posted at:
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/loaders/
Purpose:
The purpose of nuni is to avoid bios-related problems in booting linux
by not using the bios. Use of the bios for boot loaders has been a
constant thorn because it detracts from the image of linux when many new
users get the "LI" or "L 01 01...." problem with lilo.
ChangeLog:
1999-08-06 nuni-0.01 released
/ChangeLog
Although the release number is still 0.01, there have been no bug
reports or suggested modifications.
Characteristics:
(1) CMOS setings are irrelevant. Changing them all over the place does
not affect the loader.
(2) All IDE drives that have i/o ports, i.e. hda thru hdh can be booted
equally well.
(3) No cylindar limit. It can boot linux from anyplace up to 128gb.
(4) It doesn't have a second stage loader. All loading is handled by
the code in the boot sector. A utility is used to insert the inode
number and some other parameters into the boot loader.
(5) Since it does not use the bios, the diagnostics are in the form of
a colored progress bar. One color character is poked into the video
memory for each block that is loaded. It uses different colors for the
inode block, pointer blocks, setup code blocks, and kernel blocks. If
it should freeze you can see exactly how many of which types of blocks
have been loaded. Prints a red 'E' for error.
(6) It doesn't pass command lines to the kernel. It is equivalent to
the floppy boot loader in this respect.
(7) Loads zImage and bzImage type kernels. Tested on linux 2.0 and 2.2
(8) It uses GPL licence.
(9) nuni can be placed in the MBR for booting one system, or it can be
placed in many different partitions if there is some kind of selector or
boot manager in the MBR.
Usage example (mbr only):
/sbin/nuni /vmlinuz /dev/hda
Usage example (multi-booting):
/sbin/nuni /vmlinuz.1 /dev/hdb2
/sbin/nuni /vmlinuz.2 /dev/hdd7
Usage example (nuni on floppy to boot linux from hd):
/sbin/nuni /vmlinuz
Instead of using a .conf file, you would put these commands into a
script to guard against typos and to remember what you did. The
multi-booting example would depend on a selector in the MBR. (next
version to include a non-bios selector)
The loader portion is assembled with the NASM assembler. The package
includes a binary of this portion.
Neil.
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